


A Body Politic

by SylvanWitch



Category: Spartacus: Vengeance
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene for The Greater Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:57:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spartacus seeks to strengthen Crixus for the good of them all.  A missing scene for "The Greater Good."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Body Politic

No one can sustain such violent grief for long, and at last Crixus’ visible rage burns out.

 

Though Spartacus knows it isn’t so in fact, the former champion seems smaller, shrunken by grief into a lesser shadow of himself.

 

Spartacus has witnessed such things before, has seen it in himself, when shivering sorrow had wracked him into pieces and left only a hollow space fueled by anger, which burned hot but shallow in his belly, fuel to sustain only an iteration of pain and nothing more.

 

He— _they_ —cannot leave Crixus to that wasting cycle.  This is no time them to lose the hero at least half of his men prefer to follow.

 

So, when Crixus has shrugged off his well-wishers and driven away even the most relentless of those who would offer comfort, Spartacus seeks him out in the dimness of the villa’s neglected interior, some private place once reserved for the master of the estate.  Spartacus is light enough of foot to surprise a sound out of Crixus, who is crouched on his haunches low against the wall, arms hanging lifeless from bent knees, head down.

 

Reddened eyes meet his, and Crixus growls, a savage sound, primitive, the last defense of the desperately wounded.

 

Spartacus knows the weight that pushes Crixus earthward, knows the promising pull of the underworld, where the lover waits on that darker shore.  Too, he understands the crossroads of rage and anguish, and he meets Crixus there in that barren space, even as Crixus surges upward from his squat, muscles of his thighs tensing with the effort, hands clenching and opening spasmodically, as if he’s resisting the urge to throttle the interloper.

 

It doesn’t take much to push him, just a flat hand against his heaving chest.  Crixus is close enough to the wall that he rebounds with a flat thwapping sound, loud in the hollow space of the otherwise empty hall.

 

The sound of his fist striking Spartacus’ jaw likewise reverberates, but it does less harm than the noise would belie, Spartacus having learned long ago at this man’s hands how to take a hit, how to let the motion carry through his head and neck and shoulders.

 

“The first one is free,” Spartacus offers casually, as if they were sparring in the courtyard of an afternoon and not fighting for their lives in precarious exile. “The next will cost you, brother.”

 

Crixus is beyond reason, and he strikes out a second time, going low to drive Spartacus against the further wall.  But exhaustion and anger and sorrow have made him slow, and Spartacus easily avoids the drive, shoving him with both open hands head-first into the wall, where Crixus catches himself only with effort and then sags there, head down, shoulders heaving.

 

Sensing that the crisis has turned, Spartacus moves in against Crixus’ back, wrapping one powerful arm around the other’s shaking shoulder, pulling him back against the solid breadth of his chest.

 

Spartacus whispers, “Yield,” in a voice far gentler than any yet living person has heard, and then repeats it when Crixus tenses beneath his grip.  “Yield.”

 

A sound tears out of Crixus then, a strangled, anguished cry as of a mortally wounded man watching victory escape him with his life’s blood.  Spartacus takes the other’s weight as Crixus relaxes into him, scalding tears hot on his forearm where he holds the man to him, whispering words both would deny, promising things both know to be lies.

 

Gathering him closer still, Spartacus pulls Crixus backwards and uses the wall to ease himself down, bringing Crixus into the wide vee of his spread legs.  Crixus’ breath is broken and harsh as he struggles to master himself, and Spartacus takes advantage of that effort of focus to loose Crixus from his subligaculum, baring him.

 

At once, Crixus stills, his breath held against the implication of Spartacus’ bold action, and then it shudders out of him as Spartacus grasps his cock and sets a harsh, demanding rhythm. 

 

It’s not tender, this touch.  Spartacus is not interested in suggesting intimacy.  As Crixus grows hard beneath his hand, Spartacus fastens his teeth at the join of Crixus’ neck and shoulder, fastens and bites, wringing a howl from Crixus, whose hips shudder upwards into Spartacus’ hand, a helpless, involuntary motion broken only by the arching of his back as he comes hard, spunk spewing hot over Spartacus’ wrist and Crixus’ own belly.

 

The heady scent of sex fills the dusty air around them as Crixus’ gusting breath slowly eases.  He shifts in place, and Spartacus loosens his hold, stroking his thumb almost absently along the bunched muscle of Crixus’ shoulder.

 

He feels the rumble of Crixus’ voice beneath his touch as he says, “Do you expect a return in kind?”

 

There’s a note of challenge in his ravaged voice, and Spartacus finds hope in that. 

 

He is hard, cock trapped beneath layers of cloth against Crixus' lower back, and he wants nothing more in that moment than to let himself rut up against the other’s unyielding back.  Those were not the needs he sought to serve, however, and Spartacus leans in to breathe into his ear: “Expectation implies obligation, and as a free man, you are obliged to none save yourself.”

 

Words, breath, and meaning all tease a shudder out of Crixus, which changes almost at once into a sound of denial as he struggles free of Spartacus’ hold and stands, still with his back to Spartacus, shoulders rising and falling with his rapid breath as he gathers the snapped threads of his control about himself.

 

Spartacus wordlessly offers Crixus his covering when the former champion at last turns to face him.  Grief still gathers at the corners of Crixus’ mouth, anguish still lights his eyes, but there is in the whole of his expression something too of defiance, and a yet more hidden gratitude that neither expects to ever be given voice.

 

Crixus takes the cloth, fastens it upon himself without taking his eyes from Spartacus, who for his part finds it easy enough to hold the hot gaze.  Despite the discomfort of his still-hard flesh, he feels centered here in place and time, alone but not lonely in his role.

 

So when Crixus drops gracefully to his knees and reaches for the tie, when he frees Spartacus’ cock, when he wraps one hand around the base of him and wraps his willing lips around the rest, Spartacus is surprised into a sound of pleasure such as he has not made in many months.  It is eager, quick work, the repayment of a debt Spartacus would never have recalled, but Crixus does not stint of effort nor treat it as a chore.

 

His free hand grasps Spartacus’ balls, his long middle finger probing further back, ghosting around the opening of his body and making Spartacus shudder and bite back on a plea.  When that finger slips inside him, just breaching his most secret place, Spartacus bucks up into Crixus’ mouth and comes with a shout, eyes closed against the enormous pleasure, breath caught in his chest until it leaves him with a gasp and he subsides, boneless and utterly undone, to sag against the wall and gather himself only by slow degrees.

 

When he finally opens his eyes, Crixus is looking at him, still on his knees though not supplicating.  There is a smirk of self-satisfaction flirting with his reddened lips, and Spartacus, despite his total completion, feels a stir of something at his core that he squelches only with embarrassing effort.

 

As if seeing what Spartacus wishes most to deny, Crixus’ smile changes, and he shifts back onto his heels and rises in one smooth motion, offering a hand to his brother, which Spartacus accepts with a weary smile that acknowledges all the unspoken—and unspeakable—things between them.

 

As the leader dresses, Crixus steps away to lean against the far wall, crossing his arms over his chest and putting on the carefully superior expression he most often wears when regarding the champion who took his place.

 

“Gratitude,” he gruffs out when Spartacus finishes his adjustments and captures his gaze.

 

Spartacus smiles in response, a real smile, loose and free, and shakes his head.  “The pleasure was mutual, brother.”

 

“You mistake my meaning,” Crixus answers, drawing himself away from the wall and up to his full height.  He is tall again since he’s settled the weight of grief more firmly on his shoulders.

 

“For the other, I would take nothing,” Spartacus answers at last, letting into his face a little of the pain he himself carries. 

 

Crixus’ hand is warm and heavy on his shoulder where he offers his only answer—the simplest show of solidarity and brotherhood—before he strides away, leaving Spartacus to rest awhile in the dusky hall and consider for himself what freedom costs them.

 

 

 


End file.
